


practical application

by JenTheSweetie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas somehow learns to use Apple Pay which I personally have not figured out, Castiel in the Bunker, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29123061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenTheSweetie/pseuds/JenTheSweetie
Summary: “You get a discount with the rewards card,” Cas said, likeDeanwas the one doing something surprising.  “Those bagels will be 30 cents off.”“Well, thank you for your financial contribution to the household,” Dean muttered.Cas learns about Instagram, and Yelp, and Apple Pay, and Dean has some questions.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 21
Kudos: 126





	practical application

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Snapjack for the prompt! Takes place no where in particular but probably in season 12 because I'm new here and still having feelings about season 12.

"Did you know there are entire instagram accounts devoted only to pictures of macarons?"

Dean looked up from his laptop blankly. “What did you just say?”

“And not just one,” Cas said, frowning at his phone. “ _Multiple_. And it’s all just macarons.”

Dean opened his mouth and closed it and opened it again. “You’re on _Instagram_?”

“Everyone’s on Instagram,” Cas said, like it was _obvious_.

“I’m not on Instagram,” Dean said. “And _you’re_ not _everyone_.”

Cas shrugged. “Sam helped me set it up.”

“Sam helped you - _you_ did this?” Dean asked, whirling on his brother.

“He asked what people did on their phones,” Sam said innocently. 

“You are a menace,” Dean said.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Calm down, it’s not like I signed him up for Pornhub.”

“The phone screen is too small for Pornhub,” Cas said. “You can’t see any of the details.”

“No,” Dean said, pointing at him. “Just - no.”

“And then in addition to the macarons,” Cas said, like he hadn’t just been talking about his preference for big-screen, high-definition fucking, “there are whole _other_ accounts just for bread. I’ve been around for the entirety of human existence, and I can tell you that people have never paid as much attention to baked goods as they do now.”

“It’s all those cooking shows,” Sam said. “People are obsessed.”

“ _Why_ are you on Instagram?” Dean said, trying desperately to circle back. 

“It’s interesting,” Cas said, unhelpfully.

“Do you have, like, Instagram _friends_?” Dean spat.

Cas looked up finally. He seemed a little hurt. “I have… one.”

“Is it Sam?” Dean said.

“How is that relevant?” Cas said.

“What’s with you and your whole anti-social media thing, Dean?” Sam said. “Just because you’re almost 40 doesn’t mean you’re ‘too cool’ for the internet.”

“First of all, we agreed we weren’t talking about the f word, so shut your cakehole. And second of all, I’m not _anti_ -social media, I just don’t see the _point_.”

“Because, let’s see, all _you_ see the point in is hunting, your car, and the latest Dr. Sexy marathon,” Sam said.

“No, but what I _don’t_ see the point in is a hundred pictures of bread!” Dean snapped.

“It’s not just bread,” Cas said, scrolling mindlessly. “There are a lot of women in various states of undress.”

“Influencers,” Sam said significantly.

Cas tilted his head. “They do seem to be somewhat influential. Why is there a teardrop over her - ”

“Let me see that,” Dean said, snatching Cas’s phone out of his hands. “Wait, so girls just post this stuff for no reason?”

“I believe they may be doing it for attention,” Cas said gravely. 

“People pay them to do it,” Sam explained.

“So it’s like porn?” Dean said. “You’re telling me Instagram is just full of porn? And you signed Cas up for it?”

“It’s _not_ \- oh my god,” Sam said. “How do you not know anything about the online economy?”

“Sorry not all of us went to _Stanford_ , Sammy,” Dean said, scrolling his way through a series of images. “Wait, now it’s just cats. How do you use this thing?”

“Would you like me to help you sign up for Instagram, Dean?” Castiel offered. 

“They can track you through that thing, Cas,” Dean said, handing him his phone back. “Sam tell you that?”

“Who do you think is going to be tracking Cas through _Instagram_?” Sam said, rolling his eyes.

“Uh, the government?”

“I have significantly more dangerous enemies to worry about than the American government,” Cas said.

“What he said,” Sam said. 

-

“What the hell is all this?” Dean said, narrowing his eyes.

“What?” Cas said, like he had no idea what Dean could be referring to.

Dean waved his arms wildly. “You! What are you carrying?”

“Oh,” Cas said, and dropped a massive pile of Amazon boxes onto the kitchen table. “Boxes.”

“Yeah I can see they’re _boxes_ , I’m familiar with the concept of _boxes_ , what’s _in_ them?”

“Various things,” Cas said unhelpfully, ripping the first one open. 

Dean put down his coffee and shouldered up next to Cas and the boxes. “Hang on, don’t tell me you got shit delivered to the _bunker_. We don’t have an address for a reason, Cas.”

“Of course I didn’t have them delivered here,” Cas said. “I had them sent to the P.O. box in Lebanon where you get your credit card statements. Sorry, where _Mr_. _Richard Gonzalez_ gets his credit card statements. Did you know they make phone chargers that are ten feet long?”

“What could you _possibly_ need a ten foot,” Dean started, and then re-routed, “why are you buying things on Amazon?”

“They deliver in two days, Dean. Two days! Anything you want!”  


“Dude, you cannot be impressed by that, you used to be able to freakin’ fly.”

“Well, now that I can’t, it’s very convenient,” Cas said primly. He opened another box. “Ah ha! The chip clips!”

“The _what_?”

“Sam’s been using a rubber band to close his pita chips,” Cas said knowingly. “It’s not very effective. This should help with long-term freshness.”

“I,” Dean began, and then gave up because it was too stupid to even comment on.

“Here you go,” Cas said, pulling an 8-pack of toilet paper out of the largest box and holding it out to Dean.

Dean looked at it like it had fangs. “Excuse me?” 

“Sam mentioned you were almost out,” Cas said. 

“So, what, you just picked some up for us?”

“It was no trouble,” Cas said. “And anyway, it’s Mr. Gonzalez’s credit card on the account.”

Dean snatched the toilet paper out of Cas’s hands and stormed down the hall, yelling back over his shoulder, “Send the rest of it back!”

-

“I don’t think we’re looking at a vengeful spirit,” Dean said, pulling away from the curb with a jerk.

“Me neither,” Sam said. “Library turned up nothing - no violent deaths in the house going back to when it was built, and nothing suspicious in the whole neighborhood.”

“And the husband’s clean, if he was a demon at some point he’s not now,” Dean said. “Some kind of wraith?”

“Maybe a ghoul,” Cas said from the backseat. “We should check to see if there have been any grave desecrations lately.”

“Always a joy,” Dean muttered. “That reminds me, let’s get some grub.”

“Ew, Dean,” said Sam, who somehow still managed to have the ability to be grossed out even after over three decades of knowing Dean Winchester. 

“What? It’s dinner time! There was that bar off the highway.”

“I was thinking we could try something different,” Cas said. “Louisa’s Tavern is just a mile in the other direction.”

“Louisa’s Tavern?” Dean said. “Sounds fancy, you see an ad for it or something?”

“It’s very well reviewed on Yelp,” Cas said. 

Dean made a face. “You read Yelp reviews now?”

“They’re useful,” Cas said.

“For who? You don’t eat!”

“Yes, but you and Sam do,” Cas pointed out. “And I’ll have a beer. Louisa’s Tavern has a highly regarded selection of microbrews.”

“Sorry, the guy who doesn’t need the calories definitely doesn’t get to pick the place. We’re going to Jimbo’s or whatever it’s called.”

“Jimbo’s Bar has only two stars on Yelp,” Cas said. “Maybe if you ate at better-reviewed establishments, you wouldn’t have to complain so much about Sam’s indigestion.”

Sam snorted. “Don’t drag me into this.”

Castiel leaned forward and said seriously, “Sam, they have a kale chicken salad that a recent reviewer called ‘transcendent.’”

“Just kidding, definitely drag me into this - it’s back the other way, you said?”

“I’m not turning around just because Cas wants to have a fancy beer,” Dean snapped. “Maybe we can go to your place if we’re still here tomorrow, but bar food’s been good enough for us for 30 years and that’s not changing now.”

That’s when Cas pulled out the big guns. “Louisa’s Tavern’s speciality is a gourmet bacon cheeseburger.” 

Dean tapped his fingers on the steering wheel while they waited at a red light. “Goddammit,” he said, and flipped a u-ey as soon as it turned green.

“I don’t think you’ll regret this,” Cas said smugly.

And the irritating part, Dean thought an hour later as he watched Cas take an innocent sip of his microbrew and tried not to have a visible foodgasm from his bacon cheeseburger, was that the son of a bitch was _right_. 

-

Dean looked back down at his mostly crossed-off list. Sam’s side still said: _Organic apples, granola, baby spinach_ \- Jesus, had he raised a man or a fucking rabbit, he couldn’t tell sometimes - and his side just said _Dinner stuff_. Real helpful, Past Dean, he thought grumpily, and wandered over to the pasta aisle. 

By the time his cart was more full with both Dinner Stuff and Sam’s Bullshit, he’d lost Cas. Cas tended to wander away in stores - sometimes he just left to sit in the car, but more often these days he wandered around and touched a bunch of shit and bought nothing - and Dean had a guess where he’d be. He pushed the cart back to the middle of the store and up the greeting card aisle to find Cas standing in front of “Birthday Cards - Daughter-in-Law” and smiling to himself like he was reading the goddamn funny pages.

“You done?” Dean said, even though Cas was, as usual, carrying nothing and had done zero grocery shopping whatsoever.

“The messages are absurd,” Cas said cheerfully, putting the card he was holding back in its slot. “There’s so much variety! I can’t believe people just give them to each other and say nothing. They let strangers do the talking on these sacred occasions.”

“You’re overthinking it, man,” Dean said, not for the first time. “People don’t actually want to say that shit to each other. And nobody reads it either. It’s just generic bullshit.”

“But why not compose it themselves?” Cas asked. “Or if nobody reads it anyway, why put anything in the cards in the first place?”

“Dude, I don’t know. I’m not defending humanity on this one.”

“Do you and Sam give each other these ‘Hallmark cards’?”

“Fuck no,” Dean said. “When he was a kid I’d put a couple twenties in an envelope for him and tell him to go wild at the 7-11. That’s as close as Winchesters get to sentimental.”

“I think you’re missing out on the potential for comedy,” Cas said, watching as Dean started to unload the groceries onto the conveyor belt.

“We gotta keep educating you on comedy if you think Hallmark cards are the height of the art form,” Dean said, flashing a smile at the cashier. 

“Do you have your Aldi rewards card, sir?” she asked politely.

“No,” Dean said, just as Cas said, “Yes.” 

Dean swiveled to him. “What did you say?” 

“I have a rewards card,” Cas said, procuring said card from Jimmy’s wallet and holding it up as proudly as if it were a Nobel Prize. 

“What the fuck are you doing with that?” Dean said, stunned.

The cashier, clearly used to seeing little family dramas play out in front of her every day, simply took the card, scanned it, and handed it back to Cas without comment.

“You get a discount with the card,” Cas said, like _Dean_ was the one doing something surprising. “Those bagels will be 30 cents off.”

“Well, thank you for your financial contribution to the household,” Dean muttered. “What name did you even use to - nevermind, I don’t care. Does this mean you’re going to take over the grocery shopping?”

“I wouldn’t have any idea what to get,” said Cas, suddenly all hapless and angelic.

“Yeah, you’d come home with a handful of hilarious sympathy cards and nothing else,” Dean muttered.

“The sympathy cards are rarely funny,” Cas said solemnly. “The _anniversary_ cards, on the other hand, are a riot.”

“Paper or plastic?” the cashier asked.

-

“I don’t _get it_ ,” Dean snapped as soon as the car door shut behind Cas.

Sam was clearly startled. “Get what?” 

“This whole _thing_ ,” Dean said, jerking a thumb at the angel crossing the parking lot. “He wants to pay for the gas so he can _try out Apple pay_? What the fuck does he need to try out Apple pay for? He doesn’t buy shit! He doesn’t even have any money! Why does he care?”

“He likes learning about human stuff,” Sam said, frowning at Dean. “What’s new about that?” 

“Yeah, he likes cartoons and liquor and whatever,” Dean said. “This is boring stuff. Just, like, the crap it takes to be a human. Shit he doesn’t have to do since he’s not one.”

“He was human at one point,” Sam pointed out. “He made it on his own for a while, so now he’s interested in all the ins and outs. It’s a little quirky, sure, but it’s _Cas_. Why does it piss you off?”

“It doesn’t piss me off,” Dean defended vehemently.

“Yeah, this is a totally normal reaction to a guy offering to pick up the thirty bucks for your gas.”

“First of all, his account is probably hooked up to one of _my_ credit cards, so don’t act like he’s doing me a big favor,” Dean said, “and second of all, what’s he planning to do with all this stuff he’s learning about?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. What does he do with anything? Just adds it to the millennia of knowledge, I guess. He figured out Snapchat filters the other day.”

“Fucking great,” Dean muttered. “Just what he needs to know.”

“He actually sent me one of him as a panda, I took a screenshot for you - look, you’re being kind of intense about this, Dean,” Sam said. “If it’s freaking you out so much, why don’t you just ask him?”

  
“It’s not freaking me out,” Dean said. “Nobody’s freaked out.”

“Really?” Sam said. “Because since Cas has been hanging out around all the time again, you’ve seemed a little freaked out to me. You sure there’s nothing you two should talk about?”

There was a tap on the window, and Dean resisted the urge to jump. When he looked over, Cas was pressing his nose against the glass and raising his eyebrows.

Dean rolled the window down huffily. “What?”

“Sam,” Cas said urgently, “do you recall my AppleID password?”

-

“Why do people comment on YouTube videos?” Cas asked, looking so perplexed that you’d think it was part of the riddle of life, the universe, and everything. 

“Because they’re bored,” Dean said, throwing himself down in the chair across from Cas and taking a sip of beer. “Dude, you’re not supposed to read the comments, it’s a dumpster fire.”

“Then why are they there?” Cas said. “Aren’t these people reaching out for human connection? Admittedly, they’re being a little crass if what they’re looking for is companionship, but - ”

“They’re not looking for _human connection_ , Cas, they’re trolls.”

Cas looked up, startled. “Trolls? I didn’t think they had the dexterity to operate a keyboard.”

“Not _trolls_ trolls, just - they’re people who just want to cause trouble, all right? Not everybody online is a good guy, I know you know that.”

“But why YouTube comments? Wouldn’t there be more effective ways to air grievances to larger audiences?” questioned Cas, the paragon of logic.

“I don’t know, man. Some people just want to watch the world burn.”

“Like Lucifer,” Cas said seriously. 

“Little extreme, but sure,” Dean said. “Why do you care, anyway?”

“I didn’t have strong feelings about it, but some people had shockingly political things to say about the baby monkey riding the pig,” Cas said, frowny again.

“No, I mean why do you care about why people post YouTube comments at all? Why do you care about any of this stuff?”

“What ‘stuff’?” Cas said, air quotes verbally implied but fortunately invisible. 

“It’s just - you’re getting all - _human_ ,” Dean blurted out. 

“I am no more human than I was last month,” Cas said. “And significantly less human than I have been in the past.”

“Sure, but what’s next, are you going to be signing up for Tinder?”

“I don’t know what that is. Is it something I should ward against?”

“Yes,” Dean said immediately. “Look, it’s - it’s not a problem, you can do whatever you want. It’s just - does it mean you’re staying?”

“Excuse me?” Castiel said.

“Social media. Yelp. The goddamn chip clips,” Dean said, gesturing around the bunker at large. “It kinda seems like you’re, I don’t know, settling into life on Earth.”

“I haven’t left Earth in a while, Dean, you know that. What - ”

“Are you staying with _me_ ,” Dean said loudly. “I mean us. Me and Sam. Like - are you gonna stick around like a normal guy, or one day are you gonna go off and like, do something else.”

“I can’t predict the future,” Cas said. 

“Well, nobody’s asking you to, but if you keep doing all this, I’m gonna get my hopes up,” Dean said, and then froze.

Castiel peered at him intently. “Get your hopes up for what?”

“That you’ll, I don’t know,” Dean said. “Stick around. That you’ll come by on some kind of normal schedule, that you won’t fly upstairs one day and we’ll never hear from you again.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“You have before,” Dean said, and immediately realized he sounded like a whiny freaking baby. “Look, it doesn’t matter - ”

“It does,” Cas interrupted. “Dean, I can’t promise that nothing will ever pull me back to Heaven, or into the fray of some fight where you can’t join me, but - ”

“I know that,” Dean said, “of course I know that, I’m not _asking_ \- ”

“But I have no plans to leave,” Cas continued. “And I don’t plan to hide it from you if I do. If I have to go, you’ll know. I think after all this time we’ve fairly conclusively determined that we’re better off together.” 

Dean stared at him. “Okay. That’s - okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. What do you want from me, a hug?” Dean said. “Okay. I’m glad you’re sticking around. Good talk. But you gotta start breaking down your own damn Amazon boxes, man. They don’t fit in the recycling bin this way.”

“It’s unbelievable that they make recycling so time intensive,” Cas said, shooting a dark look at the overflowing bin.

“If you didn’t buy so much shit, you wouldn’t have to deal with so many boxes,” Dean said, very reasonably in his opinion.

“Don’t act like you aren’t benefitting. You’ve been using the chip clips for your Funyuns.”

“Wow, nosy much? Keep your hands out of my snacks, dude.”

“Then keep your judgment out of my Amazon orders,” Cas shot back, and Dean snorted. “And Dean?”

“Yeah?” 

“I lied. I do know what Tinder is,” Cas said, and gave Dean the slyest smirk he’d ever seen cross that angelic face. “But after a few uses, I realized there was only one person I would ‘swipe right’ for, and they are not on the app.”

And then he stood up and walked away, leaving Dean to goggle after him. “What the hell does that mean? Cas? _Cas!_ ”

-

Later, after Dean figured out what he meant by that, and even _later_ , after he actually did something about it, he pulled back from Cas’s lips and asked, “So wait, does that mean you _do_ have a Tinder profile?”

“No comment,” Cas said, and kissed him quiet.


End file.
